This Roman Polanski affair has me confused

I know that Hollywood is supposed to be all depraved and insulated from real life, etc., etc. Clearly, I am once again proving my naivete. Dozens and dozens are signing a petition defending him including Woody Allen (actually not a surprise), Martin Scorsese, Bernard Henri-Levy, Steven Soderburgh, and Natalie Portman (this is especially disappointing).

If I am reading the history correctly, this man drugged and raped a 13 year old girl. He didn’t just get her drunk and she consented. She said no repeatedly after being drugged. He admitted it and said the following in 1979:

If I had killed somebody, it wouldn’t have had so much appeal to the press, you see? But… f—ing, you see, and the young girls. Judges want to f— young girls. Juries want to f— young girls. Everyone wants to f— young girls!

How is it I even had to read so many condemnations of this defense? I am confused as to how one really tries to defend his behavior and the fact that the world wants him to face his crime. We have a very short memory. This is how Marion Barry still holds office in DC. At least he went to prison. Polanski has houses in France, Poland, Switzerland and who knows how many other places. Flabbergasted….

On a lighter note, I’m happy to see Jewel was quoted in this post as well (via Twitter). At least she has not gone Natalie Portman on us.

If I were ever to Twitter…

…this is the first person I would follow. Please excuse the vulgarity, but shitmydadsays made me laugh harder than I have in a long time. Heather and I were both in tears…literally. Here is your preview of a few of them that I plan to use at some future date. Remember, there is no need to actually have a Twitter account for this.

1. “Who in the fuck is tila tequila? Is she a stripper?…That’s her? Yeah, that’s a stripper, son, I don’t give a shit what you say.”
2. “Everybody loves that Da Vinci code book. Bullshit, it sucks. I read it. It’s for all the dummies.”
3. “I’m having a Makers Mark, you want one? What? 7up? I ain’t mixing fucking makers with 7up. Might as well put a lil’ fucking umbrella in it”
4. “Your mother made a batch of meatballs last night. Some are for you, some are for me, but more are for me. Remember that. More. Me.”
5. “They serve Jim Beam on airplanes. Tastes like piss. You wouldn’t be able to tell the difference, because you drink shit. I don’t.”

I could easily go on, but I will stop.

If the travel industry worked like health care

From the National Journal. Hat tip to Marginal Revolution.

Sobering…

…is exactly the right word. Marginal Revolution links to a Bill Easterly post on the impact of aid to Africa over the last 70 years or so. The purpose of me posting this also is not to point fingers at anyone, but this is worth remembering the next time you hear world leaders talking about the latest aid scheme. Perhaps a different approach is needed.

Quick ACORN History

By now I suspect we have all read a little or a lot about ACORN amidst the recent videos. However, there is much more to know about this organization. This post from the Atlantic hits the nail on the head and expresses what I believe perfectly. An organization can make a mistake (or mistakes), face up to it, remedy the issue in some fashion and try to move on. ACORN is not good at this. Read the whole thing.

Shady

I know I’m not supposed to say things like this out loud, but this is really shady. As the author notes, standard procedure in the scientific community and general common sense is to test a hypothesis by trying to disprove it (as is transparency in how one arrives at their conclusions). The “owner” of this data flatly refused to share what he had. Shady, very shady.

Race Report – Patriot’s Half Ironman

Some of you may recall that I was signed up for the Patriot’s Half Ironman last summer as well. I was in pretty good shape for it, but a hurricane whose name I cannot recall hit the east coast and had enough power left to pummel Williamsburg, VA the day of the race. Happily, the race organizers canceled it the day before so we did not have to make the trip for no reason. There was no refund for the race, but they did give us a 50% credit toward signing up this year. So here we go again…

Fuel

The best thing about the race being canceled last year is that I resolved to keep the running and biking volume high so my base did not dwindle too much. I think I was successful and felt pretty confident during my taper. The only training hiccup was 4-5 days of being pretty sick in August which included missing the Luray Triathlon.

My goals lined up like this:

1. Finish
2. Finish without contemplating retirement from the sport
3. Finish without walking during the run
4. Finish in under 6 hours

If you are confused by me having so many goals, this is typical in endurance sports. Athletes tend to have tiered goals and often there is one that they keep to themself…sort of a super stretch-goal that will work out if the stars align perfectly and they feel like superman. Last Saturday was pretty close to that for me.

I was very well-fueled throughout the week, got plenty of sleep, we arrived in Williamsburg early without incident and the hotel treated us well. The environment there was quite conducive to a good nights sleep. The weather on Saturday was almost perfect. The course was pancake flat which I highly recommend and, as a bonus, the run course went through some last minute changes that put large portions of it on a shaded trail. Shade is my best friend when running, especially from 11 am – 1 pm. All of these factors helped make it a great race.

If you are impatient with my rambling, here are a few pictures.

National Anthem

Swim – As usual, if anything suffers during training it is the swim for me. However, it’s also the shortest portion of a triathlon so not that big a deal. This race was small enough that my wave (men age 20-39) was not that big. We were running a little behind which in some ways is good as it leaves no time to get nervous. This was one of those days were I no sooner had my goggles on as it was time to go.

The slight current in the James River made my normal inability to swim straight even more pronounced which needed some serious correcting early on. Overall I was feeling good. After the first left turn, I looked straight into the rising sun and could not see the next buoy at all. I needed to use other swimmers to site and hope they knew where they were going. At the next turn (back to shore), I once again could see nothing. Eventually, I saw a buoy and started moving toward it. A few minutes later, I realized that the buoys were not aligned with the ext point and I was very much by myself. Heather reports that it was quite clear others had this issue as the whole pack was all over the place. The good news is that I didn’t even feel fatigue as I was swimming. It took about 39 minutes and I was expecting 3-4 minutes shorter. I attribute this to the crazy course. I was 9th out of 45 in my age group which made me happy. I normally do well in the swim and wait patiently for many of the slow swimmers to zoom by me in the bike. I would not be disappointed. No issues in T1 other than freshly cut grass everywhere.

Bike – As noted earlier, the course was completely flat and many parts were shaded. I realized pretty quickly that my goal of 18.5 – 19.0 mph was not ambitious enough. After about 10 miles, I resolved to keep the average speed over 20. This leg was pretty much uneventful. Much like during the Diamond in the Rough Tri earlier in the summer, I noticed groups of riders working together illegally. Drafting is not legal in these events. This is a HUGE advantage and it really pisses me off. There are not that many race officials on the course to catch them either. I deviated from my fuel plan a bit as I ran out of time and did not eat 2 small bars I had with me, but other than that all was well.

Going back to get race number

Run – T2 was -interesting-. I had a bad feeling I was forgetting something, but didn’t see anything else in my area. I also forgot to take off my biking gloves and was about halfway toward the mat before I realized it. This isn’t too big of a deal as I had pockets to put them in. As I neared the mat, an official informed me I did not have my race bib on. D’oh! I ran back, threw down the gloves and sure enough there it was. It had somehow moved off my towel. I probably gave up about a minute which is sad. My plan had been to complete this leg in about 2 hours (a 9:15ish pace). I must have been a bit excited as mile 1 was 7:45 and mile 2 was 8:15. After those 2, I settled down and did the rest somewhere between 8:45 and 9:30. The shade on the course was key. I estimate that about 7 or 8 of the 13 miles had good coverage. Water stops were everywhere. Nice job by the people at Setupevents. I only had 3 gels with me and my stomach was wide awake. I had eaten all 3 by mile 6. This meant that I had to eat something at the water stops and all they had was Hammer Gel. This was scary to me, but necessary. I took one and made sure I was near the water when I ate it. Good plan. It was orange flavored and generally heinous. Never again! I finished in about 1:57 at a 9:00ish pace.

Feeling good at the finish

Overall, it was 5:31 (should have been 1 minute less). I met all of my goals and was more than happy. My race supporter (Heather) did a nice job of taking pictures, cheering and keeping herself from melting in the sun or going crazy with boredom, especially at 21 weeks pregnant with twins. Now after such a good race, I need to somehow stay motivated during my 4th attempt at a 3:40 marathon in a few weeks.

Sidenote: Williamsburg is a strange town. There were at least 10 pancake houses in a 5 mile radius as well as countless steak and seafood joints. However, if you wanted chicken wings (and Heather did), you needed to either go to the edge of William and Mary’s campus (which we did) or to the Marriott (which we also did).

Another sidenote: We spent Sunday night at Keswick Hall (a resort) in Charlottesville since Heather is headed to her extended bedrest in a few weeks. Keswick was fantastic. Our 2.5 meals were great, we loved the pool and the veranda and the grounds and the atmosphere in general. If you have the chance, go there. We vowed to return someday.

Top 50 Commentators

The Atlantic Monthly has put together a list of the top 50 commentators in the US. I like that they used data to form the list (see their methodology here) based on some measure of influence, reach and web engagement. I am familiar with many of the names and actively follow some of them. I am trying with all of my might to refrain from boring you with my opinions on many of them. That would be a long post that none of us have time for anyway.

I noticed a few things about the list that don’t make me happy though. I don’t plan on engaging in the merits of who should or should not be included. That would also be long and boring. All the names are prominent. I do have two larger comments regarding what the list says about the United States.

1) Too many near the top of the list represent the fringe of their party. This is upsetting, but perhaps not surprising. Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and Sean Hannity stand at 2 and 7, and 11 respectively. Krugman sits at #1 on the liberal side. While he is no doubt many times more experienced and more educated than I, his opinions on all issues are beyond predictable. You know where he stands before he writes it.

Rachel Maddow (14), Maureen Dowd (17) and Olbermann (20) sit in the top 20. I could easily continue.

2) While many bloggers and less prominent commentators don’t make this list, they have proven they can quickly and logically dress down the kookier arguments posed by some of the folks mentioned above. Some of my favorites (McCardle, TNC, Marginal Revolution, etc.) don’t even waste time messing with the really crazy things someone like Beck, Rush, or Olbermann spews which is wise on their part given they would just be wasting their time. Here are two quick examples of a blogger with less star power rhetorically pummeling someone from this list:

• Ta-Nehesi Coates notes that it’s Kanye’s fault after a David Brooks column from last week. He takes on Brooks noting that he has selective memory in his description of American modesty during the past. In short, regarding modesty, things are not so different in the US today than they used to be. Yes, we have Joe Wilson and Kanye now, but we had George Wallace, Strom Thurmond and a host of other prominent people in the past. People have always been self-promoters and I, personally, don’t think this really applies only to the US. We are talking human nature here.
• Several people go after Thomas Friedman for, in my opinion, going off the deep end a bit. He praises authoritarian government’s ability to get things done and notes how this is helping them get ahead on issues such as climate change. I’m sure he is right about their ability to make hard decisions, but he glosses over the huge gaps in freedom and liberty that come with this. This is the quickest way to get labeled a socialist and perhaps that is okay with him. As a former Friedman disciple, it still makes me sad. I did not link to another blogger refuting him because I felt I could handle this one myself.

My point here is not that a less prominent blogger is definitively smarter or more deserving of notoriety. It is that these 50 voices may indeed carry the most influence right now, but that in no way makes them superior to the thousands of other commentators out there. It’s worth it to go looking beyond the prominent columnists in the NYT, WaPo, et al.

Bowing to Labor

The WSJ reports on a recent Obama administration action regarding Chinese tire imports. Such a move (tariffs as high as 55% 35%) can only be interpreted as a deep bow to labor as the administration would like their support regarding health insurance legislation. We figured out a long time ago that mercantilism doesn’t work. This quote sums up the irony of this action quite well given that Obama is supposedly a Democrat:

The move essentially would cut off the source of nearly 17% of all tires sold in the U.S. last year and hit cost-conscious consumers particularly hard, as retailers will have to find alternative sources for the lower-end tires that make up much of what China sends to the U.S.

I know another term for “cost-conscious”. I suspect there are more cost-conscious voters in the US than there are union members, but things such as popular support and “the right thing to do” don’t enter into political equations such as this.

Jon Stewart on ACORN

For the last few days as this story has come to light, I have been looking forward to writing a post about it. I’ve been doing my usual research here and there when I have time and putting links aside. However, Jon Stewart does it much better and, not surprisingly, with excellent humor. It’s worth it to watch the entire 6 minutes.

For those of you who haven’t heard, ACORN has been caught on tape in 4 separate cities offering advice to a fake pimp and his prostitue girlfriend. They are attempting to get aid and advice for housing and also do not wish to report all of their income to the IRS. Most importantly, they will be bringing in 13 underage girls from El Salvador as well. These two freelance reporters were obviously making sure there was no gray area here. Also, if you watch the videos, they are about the worst fake pimp and prostitute you will ever meet.

But like I said, Jon Stewart summarizes it much better.